I have a friend/potential client who will be attempting to plan a surprise wedding. They want to do a city hall marriage followed by a BBQ for family.

Has anyone here photographed/seen/heard of one of these? How in the world did the couple get people to show up? Did it work?

They are an awesome couple who really do not like the formality of a wedding and just want a few candid moments. I totally get what they want, and think it would be a great fit for them if it were possible to pull off. I simply have no advice for them.

So far I am really struggling with the whole city hall portion, not sure how that would work as it is not a usual part of a surprise wedding from what I have seen.

We've shot two surprise weddings. One was a few years back. No one knew but the couple and us. They invited a bunch of friends/family over for a dinner party and when they got there, told them they were getting married in 5 minutes.

The other was my buddy Jon Molds wedding in St Lucia in May. Some of their families knew but most of their friends didn't. It was more like an elopement.

The couple were going to have a small wedding (second marriage for both and they both had children) but that they wanted to have a nice engagement party. They ended up having a beautiful engagement party and it just so happened that the grooms brother was a wedding officiant, so towards the end the groom was giving a toast thanking everyone for coming and suggested that since everyone who was important in their life was already there, why not go ahead and get married. Obviously, this was planned out ahead of time, but only me and about two others knew. It was really pretty awesome and super fun to be a part of.

The only thing I might suggest to your friend would be to try and figure out a way to do it at the BBQ if at all possible instead of City Hall because by far the best part was everyone's reaction when they made the announcement.

I'm not much of a poster on FM and have never linked a picture, but I'll go ahead and attempt.... Here is a picture of the mother of the bride right when she found out. (Apologies if this doesn't link correctly...)

SloPhoto wrote:
They want to do a city hall marriage followed by a BBQ for family.

I've never done one of those but would like to. Tried to think of how the city hall client could be marketed to; in my experience, unless they're spending a lot of money on the wedding they don't hire a photog.

I did one just a few weeks back. They invited all their friends and family to a Halloween Costume engagement party. The front of the house was decorated for Halloween and the back was set up for the wedding. Once the majority of the guests arrived an announcement was made they were actually getting married and for everyone to gather round. It was probably the most laid back fun wedding I have ever done. Link if you care to look